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Everyone is talking about cross channel marketing. What sounds like a new, hyped buzz word from online marketing gurus, is basically what every company is facing sooner or later: placing one advertising campaign across many different advertising and communication channels. THE ATTENTION SPAN IN THE 21ST CENTURY Cross channel marketing is becoming the norm in today’s overstimulated world. Every day, we are confronted with thousands of advertising messages. This, of course, means that our attention span is getting shorter and shorter. Do you remember the commercials of last night's TV program? Or the billboards on the side of the street as you drove to work today? Or that sponsored post on social media that you just scrolled over? No? No need to worry. This is nowadays’ normality. The fact is: Many advertising campaigns simply are no longer noticed. Sad but true. RECOGNITION BEATS ATTENTION The precise advertising message as such is not as important as you might think, though. However, what really is (!) important is the brand being seen and perceived. The frequent perception of a brand is essential - whether consciously or subconsciously is secondary and quite irrelevant. Much more important - not to say: the most important thing of all! - is the recognition value of a brand. Within a small moment it must be immediately clear which brand it is. This has a lot to do with psychology and - even more - with consistency and is not an easy thing to achieve. A logo alone cannot achieve that - no chance. Therefore a logo alone is a waste of money . The ability to recognize a brand at first glance is only possible with the skillful interplay of colours, shapes, fonts, grids, images and other design elements. The professional use of all these elements working together perfectly is determined by a brand design . Of course, this also includes a logo, but not only that. Think of a brand like a human body. The logo is the heart. The brand design makes all body functions work together. This is how the body can live. This is how the brand can live. CONCLUSION Fast pace, information overload, many different communication channels (both analogue and digital), a hectic everyday life and a continuously shrinking attention span of your target group - welcome to reality. You want your cross channel marketing to succeed? A professional brand design builds the basis for your successful cross-channel marketing. Feel free to contact us.

A logo design is not good just because you think it looks "beautiful". I admit, that's a bold statement. However, by the end of this blog article, you will agree with this statement. Okay, if a logo design doesn't have to look "beautiful", what does it have to do then? A logo design must generate a certain gut feeling, an emotion, function flexibly in a wide variety of applications and - most importantly - have maximum recognition value. None of this has anything to do with personal taste. When we develop a brand design , three to five logo designs are always included, all of which go in totally different directions, but of course all of them are based on the briefing (our client’s requirements). After a couple of feedback rounds with the customer, one logo design is finalized at the end. And this has nothing to do with personal taste? Let us give you a little insight into the everyday life of a part-time psychologist ... um ... a design agency. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BRAND DESIGNER Enquiry from the customer: "We drew a logo ourselves - see the photo in the attachment. Of course, we know that it doesn't look professional, we can't use this as a logo. That's why we get in touch with you for a brand design with logo, website and so on. We work in a sensitive business, our brand simply has to look professional, everything has to be consistent and fit together. A consistent brand identity, so to speak." There is a meeting for the briefing in which the requirements and special aspects of the brand are discussed in detail. Two weeks later, several logo designs are delivered to the customer. Customer: "We really like the logo designs very much. My team and I are really excited and overwhelmed, honestly. I didn't think it could be this good. It is exactly what we were looking for! Now we are contemplating between version A and B. I will let you know what it will be in the next few days." 3 days later. Customer: "My Feng Shui consultant likes A, but she doesn't like B and C at all. She would make a mixture of D and A." 1 day later. Customer: "I have now also asked my secretary, she likes B and C, but A and D she doesn’t like. She would do a mix of B and C. And my nephew doesn't like any of the logos. However, he could imagine version D if it looked a bit more like B and you should still take the right swirl from C with it." 2 days later. Customer: "I agree with my Feng Shui consultant, we take logo version A." 4 days later. Customer: "The opinion of my Feng Shui consultant is no longer important. We also no longer need the sub-logos for the individual outlets." Another meeting takes place to consult the customer, explaining the logo drafts again in detail based on their requirements (briefing) and to give the customer clarity. The briefing is suddenly changed. Things that were important requirements for the brand in the original briefing have now been removed and new requirements have been added. In addition, the feeling that should be conveyed with the logo in the first place, should now be something different than before. 2 weeks later, new logo design drafts are delivered. Customer: "I like E and F best. But it doesn't match my secretary's taste. We drew something on paper, I'll send it to you as an attachment. Can you use that?" The customer's drawn draft is very similar to the original draft that the customer sent to the designer as part of their enquiry. The designer explains to the customer the limitations and poor functionality of the design as well as the lack of recognition value. Customer: "It shouldn't look professional on purpose. A consistent brand is not important to me at all." What reads like a soap opera here is (thank God seldom, but every now and then) a reality in the everyday life of a brand designer or a design agency. Sure, a logo design development is not a quick act that takes just a few hours. Logo design is complex and nevertheless focused on a very clear goal: to perfectly present the message of a brand, with maximum recognition value and at the same time optimal flexibility in various use cases. As you can see from the example above, however, the usefulness of the logo to convey a brand message defined in the briefing is completely ignored by some people. Ego and “personal taste” are put above the brand message. If there is also indecision (a negative trait for every entrepreneur), the result is an unnecessarily long design process and an extremely expensive brand design that costs way too much money. Not to mention the hurdles and problems that the customer puts in their own way in the medium and long run. Brand designers are indeed now and then like psychologists who sometimes have to protect their customers from themselves - in the interests of the customer and their company. A logo design has to fulfill a task. This task is to present a brand in a recognizable, professional and consistent way. The task is not to meet the CEO’s personal taste.

Not only start-ups need a brand design and a website design. No, even companies that have been in business for years keep coming back to the situation in which their brand design leaves them miserably in the lurch. There are of course various reasons for this. In any case, a professional rebranding and a new website are necessary. Find out eight things that prove that your corporate identity needs a make-over in this blog article. DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR? PROBLEM # 1: NOT ENOUGH CUSTOMERS There can be different reasons for this. One of the most common is that a brand fails to address the emotions of the target group - both on the website and in print materials. An inconsistent brand design, a logo made by your nephew and a user- un -friendly website look unprofessional. PROBLEM # 2: WHERE ARE THE GOOD EMPLOYEES? The shortage of good employees is a big problem for many companies. Coming across as an attractive employer is therefore a decisive factor for the future of a company. Employer branding that attracts the best employees needs first-class design, as we have implemented for Spedination , for example. In this interview , Thomas Kogler, Managing Director of Spedination, talks about how his company’s new corporate identity impacts the recruiting process. PROBLEM # 3: CHANGE OF STRATEGY Entrepreneurship is an exciting adventure. This also means that a company can change its strategy. Then it is important to be attractive and interesting for new markets, new target groups and new business partners in order to achieve the desired business goals. PROBLEM # 4: STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN … AND AGAIN … AND AGAIN … Every advertising campaign has to be created from scratch - be it flyers, print advertisements, online banners, social media posts or landing pages. That costs extra time, extra nerves and extra money. The reason for this is very simple: There is no brand design, so no design system for the brand. That makes every advertising tedious, time-consuming and expensive. PROBLEM # 5: EMBARRASSING ONLINE PERFORMANCE Unfortunately, you see it far too often: Outdated plugins on websites lead to embarrassing performance problems and delicate malfunctions on a website. This can happen due to outdated website technologies or simply to the fact that plugins have to be updated manually, which all too often does not happen in practice. Wordpress users know what we’re talking about here! PROBLEM # 6: EMBARRASSING OFFLINE PERFORMANCE Cheap logos in particular have a greater risk of being copied or even stolen. That can cause severe issues. Imagine, you hire a “designer” and instead of new customers, the lawyer knocks on your door, as we have already reported in one of our blog articles . It is also embarrassing when different logos for the same product or the same company are put into circulation by the company itself (unless, of course, it is a rebranding that has not been fully implemented yet). A badly made logo design can confuse customers. Even a self-made logo sooner or later confronts every company with certain hurdles and causes problems, since some basic things that make a good logo are of course not taken into account when you "design" it yourself. PROBLEM # 7: NO MOBILE WEBSITE Long loading times, unreadable text, bad usability, buttons that are way too small - these are common mistakes on mobile phone websites and make customers jump off. In addition to that: Since September 2020, the Google ranking of a website was shifted to "mobile first indexing" . Hence, the mobile version of a website is used for the Google ranking (no longer the desktop version!). Many websites are not fit for that and the Google ranking is massively impaired. PROBLEM # 8: UNFORTUNATELY, THE WEBSITE DOES NOT ADMINISTRATE ITSELF ... Do you see yourself able to manage your website yourself, including content updates and technical updates? We know from years of experience that this is almost always an illusion. Because: Hardly any entrepreneur has the expertise and - above all! - the time to take care of their own website on an ongoing, regular basis. The result: outdated content, outdated plugins, technical malfunctions and poor functioning of the website. YOU WANT TO HAVE THESE PROBLEMS SOLVED? HERE WE GO: SOLUTION # 1: A BRAND DESIGN THAT CREATES TRUST Design experts translate a company’s philosophy into a visual language that perfectly speaks to the company's target group, convinces them from the first point of contact and thus generates trust. A common thread that runs through from A to Z - online as well as offline - ensures a professional impression and thus creates trust and a good gut feeling. SOLUTION # 2: CONSISTENCY THANKS TO A DESIGN KIT The brand design serves as a design kit that makes everything look consistently amazing - regardless of whether it is a flyer, print advertisement, online banner, social media post or a landing page. That saves time, nerves and money. SOLUTION # 3: AMAZING WEBSITE PERFORMANCE We are website professionals and a 4 star Wix partner and know exactly how a brand design has to be implemented on a website. Our practical all-in-one packages perfectly combine a strong CMS, smooth functionality and first-class design. SOLUTION # 4: MULTIMEDIA INCLUDED No more expensive stock photos! Thousands of high-quality, royalty-free images and videos are integrated in the website backend, 100% free of charge. Our clients have access to first-class multimedia material for a website design that is really convincing and speaks to their target group’s emotions - without any additional costs. SOLUTION # 5: ONLINE MARKETING WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Smart online marketing tools are automatically integrated in the backend of our websites. For online shops, advertising on Facebook and Instagram is enriched with artificial intelligence for maximum efficiency. SOLUTION # 6: WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION FOR DESKTOP + TABLET + PHONE All of our websites are designed to be extremely user-friendly and optimized for devices such as desktops, tablets and smartphones. Hello responsive web design! SOLUTION # 7: ON GOOGLE WITHIN 1 MINUTE The most beautiful website is useless if it cannot be found on Google. Every website we create is SEO optimized from the start and is indexed on Google within just 1 minute after going live. SOLUTION # 8: THE WEBSITE MANAGES "ITSELF" Our all-round carefree package saves our customers a significant amount of time. We care about website administration, secure hosting and implement any technical updates that might be necessary, without taking up our customers’ time. The website manages itself, so to speak. This means that our customers can concentrate fully on their business.

How about your customers seeing your brand several times a day - every time they pick up their smartphone? And how about you sending your customers notifications directly onto their phones - even if you don't even have their phone numbers? Sounds good? Then you will find here what you have been waiting for: your own native app that is linked to your website in real time, being available for free download in app stores around the world. MORE BRAND LOYALTY WITH AN APP In the course of our brand design service , we now offer our website customers the opportunity to get their own native app too - of course with their logo and their company colors. And best of all: the app is linked to the website data in real time. A separate update of the data in the app is not necessary. THIS IS WHY YOU NEED AN APP The facts are clear: mobile phone users spend 85% of their phone time in apps, but only 14% on mobile websites. You certainly want your business to fall into the much larger part of 85%, right? We create your native app in your look and feel. Your app looks like your business. The app strengthens your brand and your image, as your app icon is displayed on the home screen of your customers' mobile phones. This also strengthens the customers' trust in your brand. All contents of your app (such as blog, shop, events, subscription functions, forums, galleries, etc.) are linked to the data on your website and are thus updated in real time. This ensures immediate updates of your app without any additional programming effort. Notifications (or so-called "push notifications") ensure the best possible direct contact to your customers. For example: "10% discount on product X for members - today only." on your customer's mobile phone display. You can't get any closer to your customers. Your native app ensures maximum customer loyalty and is perfect for building or strengthening a community. People simply love to communicate and interact with like-minded people; especially if this takes place in a protected environment within an app. Do you sell products, services, subscriptions or tickets on your website? Great! But it gets even better: All purchases in the app are linked to your website backend. This means that there are no additional expenses for sales. To give you a comparison: For purchases within an app (so-called "in-app purchases") you would normally have to deduct approx. 30% commission to Apple or Google. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A NATIVE APP AND A MOBILE WEBSITE? Nowadays, every good website is optimized for all end devices, including smartphones, of course. This has not only to do with ease of use, but also with Mobile First Indexing, which Google rigorously enforced by September 2020 (we covered this on our blog ). Google is now ranking a website based on its phone version. So far so good. The phone website is like your website, adapted in size to fit mobile phone screens. If you want to visit the website, you have to open the website in the phone's built in internet browser. A native app is a stand-alone unit that is visible as an app icon on the phone display; like the apps for WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and os on. Of course, you can also visit Facebook etc. via the internet browser of your phone - but it is more tedious and less inviting. Imagine getting a notification from Facebook for a friend request. You will see this notification as a red dot on the Facebook app icon on your phone. If you do not use the Facebook app, but only use Facebook on the internet browser, you must first open your internet browser on your phone, navigate to the Facebook website, log in and only then will you see that you have received a friend request. With a native app, you are directly and quickly in the perception of your customers. A native app is a real milestone in terms of digitization, customer proximity and user-friendliness. This takes user engagement to a whole new level. You can't get more brand loyalty. WHERE CAN PEOPLE GET YOUR APP? Your customers can get your app wherever they get all other apps: iOS users in the Apple App Store and Android users in the Google Play Store. In addition to that, your native app is equally functional for smartphones and tablets or iPads. This is how you cover all mobile devices with your app. THIS IS HOW YOU GET YOUR OWN, NATIVE APP As a Wix partner, we provide our website customers with exclusive pre-sale access to this innovative service. Contact us for your own native app.

We often hear start-ups saying they would get a professional brand design "in a few years". For the start, "something small" would also suffice (whatever "something small" may be). The aha moment a few years later is inevitable: that scenario backfires and causes immense follow-up costs. Andreas Rinnhofer, founder and managing director of Spedifort , reveals how badly this strategy backfires talking about his own example. At the end of 2020 we were hired to redesign the brand design of the Spedifort brand . Conclusion: In the end, it costs a significantly more money to create and implement a rebranding than to start with a professional brand design in the beginning. But read for yourself. Helene Clara Gamper: Dear Andreas, you are the founder and managing director of INN-ovativ KG , which unites several sub-brands under one umbrella brand. The most famous product is without a doubt Spedifort. What is Spedifort all about? Andreas Rinnhofer: With Spedifort, we have created a platform on which we have finally made e-learning for the forwarding and logistics industry accepted by the industry. HCG: How did you come up with the idea of starting such a business? How did that happen? Andreas Rinnhofer: I myself was a forwarding manager for years and struggled with two major issues: the shortage of skilled workers and the fact that certain legal requirements in classroom teaching were very difficult to transport - regardless of whether it was about training newcomers or instructing existing employees. One day my wife downloaded a fitness app, a "12 weeks - I'll make you slim" program. Although she was already slim - but hey, that's the way it is sometimes with women. (laughs) So I thought, why shouldn't it be possible to develop an "I'll make you a freight forwarder in 12 weeks" program? That was ultimately the starting point for Spedifort. As a customer, I was looking for it and even wanted to implement it myself within the company I was working for at that time. Both failed due to the lack of time - after all, everything always has to be kept up to date, you know, and it was just not an idea supported by the industry. So I just started this idea myself. HCG: At the beginning you created your own logo yourself. You have also defined two or three colors and a font yourself. How was the brand perceived by customers and business partners? Andreas Rinnhofer: In the beginning, we were perceived as a classic start-up. We founded Spedifort out of our garage, so to speak. From practice for practice was the motto and we are just not the high-class players like vehicle manufacturers, for example. So we thought that all of this was too expensive and we couldn't afford it. We're not a start-up with millions in funding. Of course, we always felt a bit bad at public appearances or presentations, when handing out flyers, at trade fairs and so on. I wanted to have a rebranding relatively quickly, but I didn't dare because I thought "what shall I do with a 30-page manual" that nobody cares about? In reality, it's not about a manual, but about an operation manual. And with these operating instructions we are now much faster and manage to make everything look equally good relatively quickly, which we simply did not do before. HCG: Many entrepreneurs mistakenly believe that a rebrand would be cheaper than a proper brand design from the start. Well, the cost of the design is one thing. But the re-creating of all marketing materials (online as well as offline) has to be added here on top. Many people forget about this. This is where the real costs of a rebranding become visible. How do you see this after your rebranding experience with Spedifort? Andreas Rinnhofer: In relation to other marketing and sales expenses, rebranding is a small investment if you are honest with yourself. But it was a huge issue for us to redesign everything internally. This went from ballpoint pens to Google ads, social media, stationery, Word templates and even the website. So all of this was an enormous amount of effort that we could have saved ourselves if we had had a professional brand design right from the start. Let me put it this way: I hire the architect before I have the house built and not the other way around. So it makes a lot of sense. HCG: How long did it take to convert everything to the new design? And what roughly did it cost? Andreas Rinnhofer: Switching to the new design is an ongoing process, it is still going on here and there. There are still some promotional materials in the old design. It took us many weeks to convert. An example: We had 10 different Google campaigns, each with 10 different sizes. That meant we had to change 100 ads. But it really pays off: With the new brand design, we are much cleaner, moving away from the start-up look and towards the corporate look. "In relation to other marketing and sales expenses, rebranding is a small investment if you are honest with yourself. But it was a huge issue for us to redesign everything internally. This went from ballpoint pens to Google ads, social media, stationery, Word templates and even the website. So all of this was an enormous amount of effort that we could have saved ourselves if we had had a professional brand design right from the start." HCG: What would you advise someone who has a great idea for a start-up and wants to start their own business? Andreas Rinnhofer: Just do it! 5% is the idea, 45% is doing it and 50% is selling. Many have ideas, but many do not implement their ideas. HCG: Andreas, I thank you for the interview and wish you and your team a lot of success with Spedifort. Book your free call here to benefit from first-class brand design and web design:

Good food is something very delightful. It is even nicer, however, when the enjoyment starts before the meal - with a visual delight. You always eat with your eyes first, right? Patricia Spieker from Gourmet Visuals knows like no other how to perfectly present culinary delights. She created her website with Wordpress in her early years, but has recently switched to Wix with her business. She tells us why in the following conversation. So look forward to an interview that will whet your appetite - for good food and a good website. Helene Clara Gamper: Hello Patricia, a few weeks ago you founded Gourmet Visuals. The name is cleverly chosen and says a lot: It's about culinary delights and visual appearance, right? Tell me, what exactly we can expect from Gourmet Visuals? Patricia Spieker: Hello Helene - first of all, thank you very much for this interview, I am very happy to be here! Your assumption is correct: Gourmet Visuals combines culinary art with visual content and offers photography, social media design, social media management and also web design for the catering, hotel, food manufacturers and food companies. HCG: How did you come up with the idea of starting such a business? Patricia Spieker: I've always had a passion for design, aesthetics and good food. In addition to my long career as a project manager in the digital and eCommerce sector, I have therefore completed my training as a photographer specializing in food and restaurant photography. In addition, I expanded my know-how to include the areas of social media and web design, and so I was able to combine all my passions. HCG: The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the gastronomy and restaurant industry with full force. Where do you see opportunities for Gourmet Visuals - and above all, support for the gastronomy sector through your service? I imagine it to be very challenging at the moment. Patricia Spieker: Yes, it is indeed - the pandemic hit the catering and hotel industries particularly hard. Nevertheless, even during this challenging time, many companies were able to convince their customers with innovative concepts. I think the most important lesson from last year is don't stop and keep moving. Eating has a huge emotional component - it is not for nothing that it is said " you eat with your eyes first" . It's about capturing this component visually and communicating it authentically to the customer; regardless of whether it is a restaurant, hotel bar or a food product. I help my customers to be noticed more intensively and to attract more guests through professional image material and a first-class digital presence via website and social media. HCG: You previously had websites on Wordpress with “Geschmacksnote” and “Lounge 20” and also implemented your customers' websites with Wordpress. Recently, you've switched to Wix for Gourmet Visuals. Why? Patricia Spieker: When it comes to the implementation of web design projects, there is no uniform procedure for me - every website must be individually tailored to the company, its goals and desired customers and reflect its brand values. I was looking for a tool that would enable me to implement outstanding and unique customer projects in the shortest possible time - I have now found that in WIX. HCG: What specifically bothered you about Wordpress? Patricia Spieker: The maintenance effort. In order to guarantee the greatest possible functionality, stability and security of the website, some plugins are usually necessary, which have to be kept up to date. Of course, this also has a negative effect on the loading speed of the page at some point and can result in high additional costs. Wordpress was also not self-explanatory enough for my customers who maintain their site to get along well with it. HCG: How did you feel about creating your new Wix website? A lot was certainly new and a completely different environment than Wordpress. Patricia Spieker: Definitely, but in an absolutely positive sense. The editor in WIX is very intuitive, easy to use and offers all the functionalities that I need for my own and my customers' websites. There are also numerous apps that can be easily integrated into the site that are specially tailored to my target group: online reservations, chat functions or newsletters. "So far, everyone has been enthusiastic about the new website, as it is much more structured and neater than the old one." HCG: What special features have you implemented on Gourmet Visuals? Patricia Spieker: On my website, I primarily focused on visual content, such as galleries and slide shows. I like it to be neat and clean, so I decided not to include animations, which are available in all variations in WIX. I also found the FAQ app very practical, which answers the most important questions my customers have on the starting page. I am also working on my blog with tips on food photography, social media and web design. HCG: A mobile phone website has been particularly important since September 2020. That was the time when Google switched to “mobile first indexing”. Since then, only the mobile phone version has been used for the Google ranking of a website. How have you been with the mobile version of your Wix website? Patricia Spieker: The WIX Editor also offers everything you need for a good design on the mobile phone. You can easily switch between desktop and mobile phone view and check at any time how the design and structure of the page will look on mobile devices. If necessary, you can simply hide objects in the mobile phone version. HCG: Speaking of SEO: A few years ago, Wix faced the issue that their websites had poor Google rankings and generally poor SEO opportunities. Wordpress was mostly highly praised in that aspect. Now that's old and gone. How do you see it, what experiences have you had? Patricia Spieker: I find the functions that WIX offers me for search engine optimization to be transparent and easy to implement. You can easily define the SEO settings, such as title and meta description, for each page. Setting up marketing tools like Google or Facebook Pixel also went smoothly - this was much more complicated in Wordpress. As far as the ranking of the site is concerned: I haven't noticed any negative effects here at all. HCG: How is the response to your new website? How did people react? Patricia Spieker: So far, everyone has been enthusiastic about the new website, as it is much more structured and neater than the old one. The websites of my customers are also very popular. HCG: If you could give points from 1 to 10, 1 point is very bad and 10 points is very good: All in all, how would you rate Wordpress and how would you rate Wix, based on your experience? Patricia Spieker: Wordpress is certainly a very powerful tool with many functionalities - but at the price of maintainability, manageability and clarity. In addition, there are additional costs for the required plugins - that's why I would personally give a 6 here. WIX, on the other hand, gets full marks from me: intuitive, transparent and easy to implement and support. And not to forget: fast support if something doesn't work out. HCG: Patricia, thank you for talking to us and I wish you all the best with Gourmet Visuals and lots of fun with your Wix website.

People simply love podcasts! Couchgeplauder is a popular Austrian podcast - entertaining, informative, funny and packed with topics that are particularly interesting for young people. Pauline Unterleitner is the young lady behind the podcast. She originally created the website for her podcast on Jimdo. However, a few weeks ago she moved her website to Wix. Reason enough to interview her and find out which platform is "better": Jimdo or Wix? Helene Clara Gamper: Hi Pauline, you have a podcast called Couchgeplauder - people love it and even Austria's no. 1 radio station Hitradio Ö3 presented it on their radio show. Tell me, what is Couchgeplauder all about? Pauline Unterleitner: Couchgeplauder is about topics that concern young people. These are very different topics: It's about studying, the opinions of older people who may believe that a bachelor's degree is worthless, it's also about environmental issues, it's a lot about mindset and how you can shape your life better. It's all about sore points in young people's lives. HCG: How did you come up with the idea for your podcast? Pauline: I think I got the idea for the podcast because I just wanted something that was my own product. Something I can use to get my own ideas out there. Somehow I never thought of a blog or a podcast. And so it just happened with the podcast. Literally over night I had the idea for the podcast, so to speak, and thought about what I would want to talk about. There are just so many topics that interest us young people - and I wanted to make these topics heard in my own podcast. HCG: When did you launch Couchgeplauder? Pauline: I started on 16 December 2019. It doesn't seem that long to me. Especially at the beginning, when you start a podcast, you are pretty clueless. You just start somehow and try to make the best of it and then you keep improving. I developed myself with the podcast and now I'm actually really happy the way it is. HCG: Okay, so there is the podcast on all known podcast channels. But you also have a website for Couchgeplauder. You created it in Jimdo at the beginning, as far as I know. You switched from Jimdo to Wix a few months ago. How come? What specifically bothered you about Jimdo? Pauline: Well, I've never been entirely satisfied with my Jimdo website. Of course, I had put an incredible amount of work into creating the website. Then it was done and I thought "okay, it actually looks pretty good". Of course you are proud of your own website, into which you have put so much heart and soul. But when you compare it with other websites of bloggers and so on, you can see: Ooookaaaay, they all have great websites, it's all a coherent overall picture. Everything fits together in terms of layout and colors. These websites also fill the whole screen. And with Jimdo I always had the feeling that there was a single block of text here and a single image there, for example. It just never really worked out. I always felt that my website was not a coherent appearance. That was the problem. Maybe I could have solved that with more Jimdo knowledge. But since I don't know how to program websites, I switched to Wix. What I really appreciate about Wix is that there are so many different layouts and so many options. Let me put it this way: It used to be noticed when someone had a super-good website. And today it is noticeable when someone has a poor website. And especially if you are young and want to address young people, you also have to have a product that is digitally valuable and looks high-quality. With Wix, I can always customize my website, it's very quick and easy. I can choose from so many different shapes, colors and layouts and there is always something I like. After I created my website on Wix, I showed it to a web designer friend of mine because I wanted honest feedback from someone who knew their stuff. He also said the website could be from a web designer. You don't see that the website is self-assembled from different blocks. HCG: How did you feel about creating your new Wix website? Everything was certainly new and a completely different environment than Jimdo. Pauline: I think Wix is easier because you see the website in the backend exactly as it looks like in live mode. And with all of the layouts to choose from, there's always something you like. In the end, you get a product that you are really satisfied with. What I also like about my Wix website is the large image above, which spans the width of the screen and is still of great quality. In Jimdo, at least that's how I experienced it, I was only able to place smaller pictures. Maybe I could have solved that somehow. But my Jimdo website just never looked as high quality as my Wix website. HCG: What special features have you implemented on your Wix website? Can I also listen to your podcast episodes there? Pauline: On my website there is a big button "jetzt hören" (which translates "listen now") at the top right, which forwards people on to Spotify, there you can listen to the podcast episodes. Of course, I've also linked my social media channels on my website, such as Facebook or Instagram. There's also an Instagram feed below that automatically fetches my Instagram posts. I think that's really cool. Then I also have a blog on my website that is super-easy to use. That makes the website a lot livelier. HCG: A mobile phone website has been particularly important since September 2020. That was the time when Google switched to “mobile first indexing”. Since then, only the phone version is used for the Google ranking of a website. How have you been with the mobile version of your Wix website? Pauline: That worked great, because you can already view the mobile version of the website in the editor. So you can see exactly what the website will look like on your mobile phone. I find that very practical, because Jimdo didn't have that (or I didn't discover it). HCG: Speaking of SEO: How did you like the Wix SEO Wiz? Did you work with it? Pauline: Yeah, that worked pretty well actually. Especially if you don't have any SEO experience yourself, this is a really practical tool that takes you by the hand and says "hey, here and there is still something to do and that's how it works". That was very helpful. HCG: How is the response from your audience to your new website? How did people react? Pauline: Everyone is thrilled! People think the website is really cool. Many friends think that they could never do this themselves. But I have to say: yes, if you spend a little time with it, anyone can do it! And that's the beauty of Wix: It's so easy to design your own website and you don't have to be a web designer or programmer. You just get a great website and a coherent overall picture. HCG: If you could give points from 1 to 10, 1 point is poor and 10 points is very good: All in all, how is Jimdo doing, and how is Wix doing in your opinion? Pauline: I would place Jimdo at 5 and Wix at 9. HCG: Pauline, thank you for the interview and I wish you all the best with your podcast and your Wix website! "It used to be noticed when someone had a super-good website. And today it is noticeable when someone has a poor website."

Travelling is simply wonderful - especially when your destination is the beautiful city of Hamburg in Northern Germany! Do you also miss going on sightseeing trips and travelling? Yes? Then you will enjoy these photos from my last trip to Hamburg in summer 2020 - a time that seemed at least a little bit like the "old normal".

As a Wix partner, we were invited to the beta phase of a new, promising editor from Wix in March 2020. In addition to the classic Wix editor, with which we have been creating great websites for our customers for many years, Wix has launched an additional WYSIWYG tool ("what you see is what you get") called Editor X to create a professional website. In this blog article we would like to introduce you to a few interesting features of Editor X and our personal experiences with them. On our page www.wixpert.design you can see Editor X and its power in action! And of course: Editor X also comes with a convenient drag and drop function. So there is still a handy bridge between website coding and website design. 100% responsiveness (finally!) Many Wix website designers have been waiting for more responsiveness in Wix. Yes, all Wix websites are fully visible and functional on desktops, tablets and smartphones. The content is displayed correctly on mobile phone websites and can be freely arranged. The text size on mobile phone websites can also be adjusted to the smaller phone screen size in the classic Wix Editor. In order not to overload a website, any elements on the mobile phone version can simply be hidden. However, the new Editor X has much more to offer here: The entire content (images, videos, copy, etc.) can be manually adapted to any screen size (even pixel-perfectly!). The text size can optionally be formatted into a text size range. In other words: on the desktop the text has a size of 30 px, on the iPad Pro 28 px, on the iPad 25 px, on the iPad mini 22 px, on the iPhone 18 px - for instance. This bandwidth is set once and the text size automatically adapts to the corresponding screen size. Design by breakpoint Editor X allows you to design each breakpoint differently. A breakpoint defines the size of a screen. The classic breakpoint sizes are desktop, tablet and smartphone. But other screen sizes can also be styled with pixel accuracy. This enables maximum flexibility and responsiveness. In practice this means, for example: An important button is red on the desktop version, green on the tablet version and yellow on the smartphone version. In the classic Wix Editor, elements in the mobile version can be changed in size or simply be hidden. In other words: If I only want to display something on the mobile phone, I have a problem with the classic Wix Editor. With Editor X, I can design, color, show or hide elements as desired, regardless of the breakpoint or screen size. Docking What sounds like a breakdance move at first glance, is another extremely practical function in Editor X - docking. In the classic Wix Editor, elements can be pinned to the corners of the screen. Docking in Editor X is similar and allows for elements to be aligned towards other elements (or towards the edge of the screen) based on percentage distance or pixel distance. Of course, every breakpoint, i.e. every screen size, is included here. This enables an all-round harmonious website experience on every imaginable screen size. Very convenient! Focal points on images Editor X allows you to define certain parts of an image or video that must always be visible. Think of a promotional photo with a model wearing a watch. The website advertises this watch. Of course, that watch is rarely exactly centered in the picture. If the photo is zoomed or only a certain section is visible on smaller screens, you can tell Editor X to define which part of the image must always be visible. The watch is always in the focus of the viewer and does not move out of the picture. A very clever feature! Fixed, fluent or sticky? In Editor X, all elements can be set as fixed, fluent or sticky. This describes the behavior of an element when scrolling on the page. You want a certain photo to be fixed at a certain point or you want it flow as visitors scroll down the page? When flowing, how shall it flow? Until the end or only up to a certain point? This opens up great new opportunities for us as Wix website designers to optimize the website experience for the user to a maximum. On our page wixpert.design you can see the astronaut with a sticky scroll effect: CSS grids CSS is of course not a new web design term. However, it is new in Wix. Editor X makes it possible to work with CSS grids, i.e. to divide a design area into a table with columns and rows in order to ensure even more flexibility and modularity in the design. This also benefits the different screen sizes or breakpoints. Another aspect for 100% responsiveness. The teething troubles Like so many "new" inventions in the IT world, Editor X comes with a number of teething problems. A few features do not yet work 100% smoothly in live mode. Another minus: some functions that are known from the classic Wix environment are not yet integrated in Editor X. This is a major shortcoming, especially when it comes to multilingual websites. It is currently only possible (as of April 24, 2021) to create a website in several languages with spending many extra hours (thus, extra money for the client). The Wix Developer Team "is working hard" to get rid of these teething problems in Editor X accordingly. And even if the performance is not yet 100% mature and some things still need technical improvement, the Editor X is a very powerful tool for creating great websites. Editor X has of course many more amazing features to offer. This blog article gives you just a brief overview and introduces you to the features that we like very much in particular. Do you fancy a website with Editor X? Book your free call now to start your website project:

In autumn 2020 we received an inquiry from Thomas Kogler for the development of a brand design including a website for his newly founded forwarding agency called Spedination . Since the transport industry has been with us for many years anyway (in the course of print designs and app designs for Blickpunkt LKW & BUS and the rebranding for Spedifort , the brand design for Spedination was a great project to dive even deeper into the exciting world of freight forwarding and logistics. Helene Clara Gamper: Thomas, you and your team have officially been in business for about half a year now. How have the last six months been for you and your team? Thomas Kogler (founder, owner and managing director of Spedination GmbH): The last six months have been very exciting and, above all, a lot of work. Completely setting up the system, convincing customers and freight forwarders of our quality, giving new employees the chance to become part of the Spedination family, to name just the most important things. HCG: Well, there are a lot of forwarders out there, and - to be very honest - they all do more or less the same thing: They transport goods from A to B. An outsider might think: "He's going to start his own business in an industry with a lot of competition - and even in these uncertain Corona times. He must be totally crazy!" Why did you take the plunge into the adventure of entrepreneurship? Thomas Kogler: I would like to state one thing here: I have no competitors, just companions on the market. And there is a very clear focus here. Better and more modern, but above all maybe a little different from the others. Have you heard of the Red Ocean or Blue Ocean strategy ? Here I have definitely steered my company into blue waters. HCG: I can still remember that in autumn 2020 you already had a logo, even a kind of corporate design "light". Nevertheless, you wanted a rebrand before the official start of the company. Why? Thomas Kogler: As an entrepreneur you have to stand by what you do and therefore there are no compromises on this topic. If even one piece of the puzzle is missing (which was the missing social media icon in the previous CI), it's not good enough. HCG: What kind of feedback do you get from people about your company's appearance? Especially the copy and wording on the website are quite provocative here and there. Thomas Kogler: The feedback on the website is so good that sometimes you might think people just want to slime. But what is really nice about it: We receive emails via the contact form from people who have nothing to do with transport, only to say that the homepage makes them want to work for us. HCG: When you think about our collaboration; were there things that surprised you or that you did not expect? Thomas Kogler: I was surprised by the intensity of the questions that were asked from the start. How much you went into detail about the topic and the overall positioning of our brand over and over again. But that is exactly what delivered a great result and what also greatly simplified any further advertising activity, as it is always immediately clear what is desired. HCG: Yes, the briefing is the most important thing for me as a brand designer, that's for sure. Employer branding was also very important to you from the start. How did the search for employees work out for you in the end? Thomas Kogler: Yes, the branding is extremely important and, above all, being different and better than the companions in the market is fully in line with my strategy. As far as the search for employees is concerned, I was very positively surprised. This is one of the most difficult topics in our industry and usually involves a lot of effort and a lot of money. At the moment, however, I have far more applications than I could hire new employees. And not just career changers, but also experienced professionals who would like to become part of the Spedination family in order to experience our spirit. Growth is great, but in a controlled manner. HCG: That sounds great. So Spedination is ready for expansion. For me it is of course very nice to see how customers flourish and grow. Where do you see your business in five years? Thomas Kogler: It is a bit difficult to give an exact forecast of when I will achieve which goals, as many things are currently changing very much due to Corona and the acceptance of digitization, I would even say: very much better. My goal from the start was 30 x 10! What do I mean by that: I never wanted to set up a company with 100 employees in one location. My goal is to set up 30 branches across Europe with 10 employees each. Due to the new possibilities, I no longer see the business as being tied to one location only. And so I get a whole new level of flexibility and a whole new level of employee satisfaction as well. HCG: If someone wants to get into the freight forwarding industry - what would you advise them to do? Thomas Kogler: To become a member of the Spedination family! And not only as an employee, but also to become your own boss - similar to a franchise system. Many feel the need not to be the cog in the system, but to be the system itself. As part of the Spedination family, you can make your dream of independence come true with a "company within the company" system. HCG: Thank you for the interview and of course for the great cooperation. I wish you and your team good luck and all the best for the future! Thomas Kogler: Thanks also to you for the great cooperation! (Due to the corona pandemic, the interview was carried out "remotely" without personal contact.) Book your free call here if you too want to get started with your business and benefit from a first-class brand design including a website:

We were recently invited to a photo and video shoot for MAN Trucks in the Zillertal. At first the weather played along, but from noon it got increasingly worse. A typical problem when available dates of many participants have to be considered and the weather forecast cannot be taken into account. Photo retouching is a popular service with our customers as part of our print design jobs - especially in this specific case. Here you see a few original photos and the same photos after our retouching service in comparison: As you can see, we let the sun shine for our customers. :-)

In the summer of 2020, the website platform Wix, with which we implement all of our brand design and website design projects, carried out an extensive performance update to make every Wix website faster - on desktop, tablet and mobile. Ultimately, the loading speed (page speed) plays a significant role in the Google ranking of a website. All of this happened in the background at no extra cost and without manual intervention by Wix users and Wix partners like us. The goal: Making every Wix website load faster Wix used to have a problem in the past - or rather, numerous page speed test tools used to have a problem with Wix. The reason: most page speed tools cannot properly read the Ajax technology on which Wix was based and could therefore not correctly calculate the loading time. Therefore it led to incorrect test results. We were informed of this by one of the leading providers of website analysis tools. That might also be a reason why Wix offers its own page speed tool called Wix Turbo. You can see the massive differences in the page speed test times below in our test results. What did Wix do in particular? As part of the major performance update in summer 2020, Wix massively reduced the amount of code that is loaded on end devices and has put more code on its own high-speed servers instead ever since. In addition, Wix also worked on code-based internal topics in order to be able to transport correct test results to the numerous analysis tools out there. Page speed of a Wix website - the hard facts But: How good was the Wix performance update really? We wanted to know the facts and tested some of our customers' websites with four different page speed analysis tools before and after the performance update - specifically on July 13, 2020 and February 19, 2021. The results: VinAvventura on July 13, 2020: Google Page Speed Test (= a value between 0 and 100; the higher the value, the faster the loading time): 33 desktop, 13 mobile webpagetest.org ("fully loaded time"): 11.68 seconds GTmetrix: 23.8 seconds Wix Turbo ("visitor interaction within"): 4.4 seconds VinAvventura on February 19, 2021: Google Page Speed Test: 79 desktop, 46 mobile / 240 % and 354 % faster webpagetest.org: 6.08 seconds / 48 % faster GTmetrix: 3.2 seconds / 87 % faster Wix Turbo: 1.8 seconds / 56 % faster (No significant changes were made on the website.) Holzbau Wegscheider on July 13, 2020: Google Page Speed Test: 43 desktop, 16 mobile webpagetest.org: 14.14 seconds GTmetrix: 19.4 seconds Wix Turbo: 3.0 seconds Holzbau Wegscheider on February 19, 2021: Google Page Speed Test: 85 desktop, 42 mobile / 198 % and 263 % faster webpagetest.org: 6.50 seconds / 46 % faster GTmetrix: 2.3 seconds / 88 % faster Wix Turbo: 1.4 seconds / 53 % faster (No significant changes were made on the website.) Ingenieurbüro Genitheim on July 13, 2020: Google Page Speed Test: 48 desktop, 21 mobile webpagetest.org: 8.28 seconds GTmetrix: 8.6 seconds Wix Turbo: 2.3 seconds Ingenieurbüro Genitheim on February 19, 2021: Google Page Speed Test: 86 desktop, 48 mobile / 79 % and 129 % faster webpagetest.org: 5.39 seconds / 35 % faster GTmetrix: 3.8 seconds / 56 % faster Wix Turbo: 1.1 seconds / 52 % faster (No significant changes were made on the website.) Blickpunkt LKW & BUS on July 13, 2020: Google Page Speed Test: 38 desktop, 16 mobile webpagetest.org: 10.99 seconds GTmetrix: 14.5 seconds Wix Turbo: 3.8 seconds Blickpunkt LKW & BUS on February 19, 2021: Google Page Speed Test: 59 desktop, 20 mobile / 55 % and 25 % faster webpagetest.org: 8.43 seconds / 23 % faster GTmetrix: 10.0 seconds / 31 % faster Wix Turbo: 2.6 seconds / 65 % faster (Between the two testing times, an online shop and a subscription function including a payment system were implemented. Despite these normally slowing elements, the loading speed was greatly increased.) Urlaub Maxnhager on July 13, 2020: Google Page Speed Test: 44 desktop, 18 mobile webpagetest.org: 10.19 seconds GTmetrix: 8.9 seconds Wix Turbo: 2.1 seconds Urlaub Maxnhager on February 19, 2021: Google Page Speed Test: 82 desktop, 56 mobile / 86 % and 211 % faster webpagetest.org: 3.91 seconds / 62 % faster GTmetrix: 2.5 seconds / 72 % faster Wix Turbo: 2.0 seconds / 5 % faster (Between the two testing times, an image gallery was optimized and new text elements and design elements were added.) Conclusion The results are clear: Wix has done a very good job here and could really massively speed up their websites - without extra costs and effort, fully automatically in the background. Well done!